The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said for the first time it found chemicals used in extracting natural gas through hydraulic fracturing in a drinking-water aquifer in west-central Wyoming.

Samples taken from two deep water-monitoring wells near a gas field in Pavillion, Wyoming, showed synthetic chemicals such as glycols and alcohols "consistent with gas production and hydraulic-fracturing fluids," the agency said today in an e- mailed statement.

Immediately, energy groups and energy state officials began condemning the report, calling it politically motivated, irresponsible, premature and inconclusive. A spokesman for Encana, the Canadian company that is drilling in the area, said the study indicates a "probability" not a "conclusion."

It's an irrelevant response. Much public policy, after all, is based on avoiding probabilities.

Think of it this way. Fracking industry supporters are saying this: fracking might not be inserting deadly chemicals into your drinking water, so we should keep fracking until we're absolutely certain it does, and in quantities that will harm you.